She took a deep breath, and let it go.

So, funny story. Directly after composing the post below about the detrimental effects of contacting ones former spouse I had a week of ridiculous and illogical intense desires to contact my former spouse.

I was at my parent's house for Easter Sunday. Among the updates from Lady Pants (my step mom) and The Padre (what my little sis has always called my dad <3) was an offhand comment about how The Mr. had called Lady Pants one day on his lunch break saying he wanted to talk with her and The Padre. They weren't able to find a time, and that is the full extent of that story. The End. But somehow that is what commenced my downward spiral into the sinking kind of thoughts. Thoughts that, even inside my own head, sounded like an old, recorded version of myself talking to me. Sentences that start with; why, when, will he and I wonder spouted off in my head like those twirling sprinklers you ran through when you were young enough to put on a bathing suit without sucking in your tummy. The thoughts splashed about in my mind for a couple days 'till I was playing blocks with the kid I nanny on Tuesday and had this nearly overwhelming urge to grab my phone and text The Mr.

I know! Right?!

So I'm totally the girl that, when things are hard, just indulges her natural inclinations... like the inclination to eat popcorn, ice cream and cereal all day while marathoning my way through all 7.5 seasons of Bones. Or the inclination to buy myself a cheer up dress. Or the inclination to marry a man I hardly know because he's soooo cute and quirky. But this natural inclination, I am happy to report, I smashed the way a girly girl abolishes from existence the daddy long legs she discovers in her shower; frantically, and with great force. Therefore, I have the following tips for my fellow divorcees.

When you are struck with the desire to reach out... do it! But not to your ex. Send out a request to ten people who love you to remind you why you divorced the person you once loved and why you are better off without that person... on the double. I have now, conveniently located in my smart phone, an extensive list of incompatibilities to reflect on in moments of the logic stifling tsunamis of post-divorce-brain struggling to put the pieces back together.

Also, I discovered a secret weapon. This is for both the ladies and gents out there. Regardless of the fact that Pintrest is a corner of cyberspace largely navigated by women, it's a powerful tool! I now have at my fingertips a smattering of sassy, empowering quotes, images of beautiful places and things to bask in, and an entire page dedicated specifically to faces and physiques that could make a girl forget her first name, let alone her first marriage. All this and more to redirect my attention when the memories of the happy days get thick, for the low low price of a smart phone that I will not be using to call my ex-husband.

Also, in church on Sunday we kicked off a lesson on the value of the Priesthood in the home with Families Can Be Together Forever - thanks for that. My fight or flight is really more of a run away or cry - impulse and it kicked in immediately. Do not distress though my friends. I made, "I hate all the orphans in the world," my mantra throughout the lesson, and you know what? It worked! Who knew my advice would turn out to be so useful to me ; )

Hang tough. Some weeks are (apparently) rougher than others, but any way you slice it, it's another week between what is and what was.

It's okay to be okay.

Photo attribution here.

My divorce was finalized November 27, 2012. In December I was living alone in a two bedroom apartment, trying desperately to figure out how I was going to make the ends meet, how to get my body out of bed every morning and how to get myself to stop crying in inappropriate locales (read: work, church, family gatherings, grocery stores etc.) I made the very conscious decision that I would go ahead and celebrate Christmas that year, all alone in my apartment with my cat. I bought a tree, some gifts, a little tinsel, found a Pandora Christmas station and felt so improved I decided to make what seemed at first to be a courageous decision to throw myself a little Christmas party.

The day of the party I was a mess. I spent my day dreading the looming evening. I was exhausted, chubby from all the comfort eating, my social skills were rustier than a VW Bug in Hawaii and I terribly, deeply, unmaskably sad.

Driving home from work that day I passed, as I always do, the apartment where The Mr. and I used to live together. That day there was a great deal of holiday traffic that unavoidably stuck me smack dab in front of that apartment for what must have been 20 minutes, but felt like forever. I sat there, sobbing, screaming, pounding my steering wheel, cursing like a sailor and hating every last thing I could think of about my life.

When I got home, family came and helped me pull myself together. Guests showed up one by one and were sweet and congenial. They even wore the Ugly Christmas Sweaters I'd requested, then personally reneged on. In retrospect I know they must all have been wondering why on earth I'd decided to throw a party less than four weeks after filing for divorce, but ultimately it's a memory I'm grateful for.

After that horrible night revisiting my painful past, trapped in my '73 VW Bug at one mile an hour in suburban hell, I decided something must be done. I pass that apartment every day on the way to work. It's not going away, and neither is the disaster my marriage became. It's a part of my life the way that apartment full of 1,000 dark memories is part of my commute. After that Christmas party day I implemented a new practice.

Every time I pass that apartment, I say a prayer of thanks that I am not married anymore.

The first time I did this, I felt like I was lying to God. On top of that, I thought it was a terrible thing to do. How can I be grateful that I broke a covenant? And express that to God? It just seemed wrong. But the fact that I would pass that apartment every day for the next foreseeable future, and the amount of pain it brought me every single time... I had to do something.

It's been almost three more months now. That equals 96 trips or so passing that apartment, once on the way there, once on the way home. Sometimes I feel a twinge. Sometimes my heart breaks just a little more. But sometimes, I don't even notice I'm passing it, and sometimes I actually feel grateful. I see just a little more clearly how horrible we were together, how unhealthy and unkind. I see how my life is improving every day we are apart, and I realize the truth that God does want us to be happy, both of us, and that this phase can be a blessing too.

Maybe this comes a lot more naturally to some of you. I've spent all my life trying very hard to live up to what I believe God expects of me. And yet here I am in this place I never wanted to be. It's a place that is ambiguously referred to as a "trial" in Sunday School. Not much else is said about it in doctrine I can find, other than the passing reference in conference talks. There's just this overarching, vague sense that it's wrong to get divorced. If it's wrong and bad... then shouldn't I feel... bad for doing it? Should I be perpetually miserable and destroyed for having failed so badly at it?

Today I say no. And here's what I've got to back it up:

Psalms 146:5
Proverbs 3:13
John 16:33
Romans 14:22
Psalms 35:9
Psalms 118:24
Luke 2:10-11
And for those of us really stuck on the fact that we messed it up, Job 5:17

I know God, and He wants His kids to be at peace, to be healthy, to be loved and to be happy. He understands intimately the moments when we just can't be, and He aches with us. In the moments when we can, He feels joy.